Where to Buy Wine Online: The Top Eight Wine Ecommerce Sites for Unique and Interesting Wines

What’s to like: The essence of a careful selection that reflects a point of view, Chambers Street has a sphere influence that far outreaches its lone location in New York City. Champions of small, artisanal wines from around the world, you can be assured that a wine from Chambers Street will speak to you as unique, interesting, mostly natural and NOT available at the local wine warehouse. It’s a bonus that NYC is a hyper-competitive wine market because Chambers Street prices, despite the small production of their wines on offer, are reasonable. It’s my go-to spot for German Riesling and wines that make my heart sing like a good Barbaresco.

What’s to like: Based on a six- year blitz of PR and online advertising, many wine enthusiasts are familiar with Crushpad wines, a California-based company that makes winemaking accessible to the everyman with a few thousand dollars and a dream. Less familiar is the actual output of these passionate wine arrivistes who bring their winemaking efforts to market in true small lot fashion, often a barrel at a time (about 25 cases of wine). Crushpad Commerce is a fantastic resource for buying wines that not only have a story behind them, but, literally, may never be seen again. I’ve had a Crushpad produced Pinot Noir for Thanksgiving that was transcendental and a Syrah that made me a believer in the forsaken varietal. Crushpad Commerce should be on any online wine shoppers’ link list.

What’s to like: the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia is getting the PR lightening, but the Niagara Peninsula is bringing the thunder. There’s a lot to like about Canadian wine that 10 years hence will be reaching broader consumer awareness. You’re well advised to get in early on the quality that is coming from Southern Ontario. There’s a purity of expression in the cool climate New World wine that is mind-bending. The rub is Canadian wines are nigh on impossible to find anywhere but online. Canadian Wine Shop solves this problem.

What’s to like: A bruised label, a bumped foil cap, some smudging on the bottle, a vintage a year or two old, whatever. I don’t care. It’s what’s inside that counts. Not so with regular wine consumers who aren’t as in-tune as you and me. Regular Joe’s routinely forsake the bumped, bruised and less than au courant for the pristine. That’s where Accidental Wine Company comes in. Think of it as a scratch and dent sale for wine, except the content is still pristine. Accidental purchases wines that, for one reason or another, isn’t easily sellable by wine retailers. Let fickle consumerism be your friend and pick-up a closeout from these good guys.

It was a dogfight for the eight slot, and I seriously considered Marketview Liquor because they’re my go-to for Finger Lakes Riesling while offering seamless service, but Wine Monger wins out because my point is to present online wine shops with something uniquely personal to say. Wine Monger started out as a seller of Austrian wines, but has slowly expanded to Italy and a very small sub-set of California wines. More than anything, like Chambers Street Wines, they represent a point of view—small, artisanal, family-owned wines. Austria is a small wine producing country with varietals that, in the paraphrased and truncated words of William Burroughs, will make you see God. Italy is the largest wine producing country in the world and couched within that is the unique. California is the New World pinnacle with tiny producers waiting for mind share from an appreciative audience. Wine Monger shows you the small guys worth noticing.

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